The Harvard/MIT MD-PhD Program at Harvard Medical School (HMS), sponsored primarily by the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) through its Medical
Scientist Training Program (MSTP) since 1974, provides fellowship support
for selected and highly qualified students who have elected to pursue
both the M.D. and Ph.D. degrees. The overall mission is to train the next generation of leading physician-scientists, with representation across a variety of clinical disciplines and research areas from basic and translational sciences to bioengineering to the social sciences.

The MD-PhD Program seeks to provide entering students with a thorough
and up-to-date medical education combined with research training in laboratories
of premier investigators at Harvard
University and the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT). These students begin their training in the summer before the
first year of medical school by taking a course called “Molecular Biology of Human Disease.” This
class is especially designed to introduce the entering MD-PhD students
to current disease-oriented research problems, and
to develop their critical thinking skills. After the summer course, the education
of the students usually follows a “2-4-2” model. The students join
the entering medical school class to complete the years of medical
school through either the HST or the Pathways curriculum. In the graduate phase of the program, dissertation research can
be carried out in any of a number of different departments
or programs at Harvard or MIT, including biological, epidemiology and biomedical sciences, mathematics, physics, and various branches of engineering and chemistry and social sciences. After
defending their theses, students return to HMS for their last two years to complete the M.D. degree. To ease the transition back
to the clinic, the program offers a Longitudinal Course in Clinical Medicine.

The program provides academic and mentoring support to approximately
175 students, taking advantage of a large, committed faculty. An extensive array of enrichment activities and para-curriculum supplement the core educational training of the dual degrees, and serve to foster community, provide career development, and facilitate the integration of patient care and research.